The Journal Of E. A. Kolb

Last week, Kristen (galactose), Nate (statichd3), and I went to see Nine Inch Nails at the Knoxville Auditorium and Coliseum. We had bought floor tickets through nin.com the minute they became available several months ago. This was my second time seeing them in concert; the first being in Buffalo, NY during the Fragility tour in 2000 (tour shirt: "Where the fuck were you?").

I first started listening to NIN back in 1997. That was the summer I was working as a councilor at Camp Sabattis in the Adirondacks. That year the staff suffered through the regime of a particularly inept program manager, so there was much angst to be had by all. Between Zay (linzzay) and a couple of other staffers' music collections, I got hooked and the band has remained one of my favorites to this day.

The tickets we were general admission floor tickets. Eight years ago, the ticket I had was not a floor ticket and I recall trying to spend a fair amount of time at the concert trying to weasel my way down to the floor. (No dice, by the way.) When tickets for this show went on sale, floor admission was a necessity.

We got in there pretty early on and got a good position -- about 15 feet from the stage. Of course, with so many people packing into a place on a summer evening, body odor became a bit of an epidemic, but what can you do?

Reznor picked four different bands to open for Nine Inch Nails: Crystal Castles, Does It Offend You Yeah?, A Place To Bury Strangers, and Deer Hunter. Sadly, it was Deer Hunter - my least favorite from the sampler that Reznor distributed earlier in the season - who opened for us. Apparently the front man is a native of Sevierville, not far from here. I don't think his memories of this place are that fond; their performance could be summarized as irritating the crowd for 45 minutes. All of their music sounds like a rambling Tom Yorke solo track, only completely lacking any soul. It seems like they were deliberately lengthening their songs with the same narrow sequence, just to fill their time on stage. By the time they left, most folks around us had reactions ranging from "good riddance," to mild rationalizations that they didn't feel totally gypped.

We had miscalculated a bit on our positioning strategy when we came in. Once Nine Inch Nails came out, the crowd surged forward, utterly ignoring the notion of "personal space". I feel like I should have anticipated this, but nobody's perfect. Predictably, our position (now slightly less than 15 feet) turned into the writing masses once the music began. If you were by yourself, this was probably a lot of fun. However, I spent most of the first five songs doing whatever I could to keep Kristen from getting crushed and/or smotherered. I wasn't exactly comfortable myself either. Things got just way too hectic and, by the middle of "March of the Pigs", we started pushing our way towards the back.

This turned out to be a Very Smart Move^TM. Not only could we see better, we weren't distracted by personal safety issues and pressing concerns of getting knocked over or trampled to death. Plus with my height I was still able to get a fair amount of photos and videos. You can see them here: http://flickr.com/photos/eakolb/sets/72157606858403079/.

The show was amazing. They touched on music from every major release (including Ghosts I - IV). The theme of the concert was Lights In The Sky Over North America and was hallmarked by the dual screens they had going for the light show. The screen in back was backlit while the one in front was a mostly transparent grid that seemed to be projected on. The grid was wired up with various sensors that played with the show. For instance during "Only" -- the highlight of the lights show, in my opinion -- the projected screen of white noise bubbled around Trent. At one point, they had the screen obfuscating the stage while the crew cleared the Ghosts kit (they were performing "The Greater Good"). When that was complete, one of the crew guys came out and used his flashlight beam to wipe away the front projection layer. Finally, at the beginning of "Echoplex" during the encore, one of the band members came out and touched the squares on the projection layer to program the drum machine.

All in all, it was an incredible show. My left leg locked up on my way out and my calves were sore for like four days afterwards, but it was worth it. Also, the only time I would willingly drop $70 on t-shirts and not bitch about it.